By the end of the day, over 115,000 websites had creatively altered their pages in protest of SOPA and PIPA. By doing so, they not only informed their audiences about these crucial bills, they helped reframe Wednesday's event from single sites protesting into an internet-wide blackout.
The impact of Wednesday's protest has been massive. Congressional attitudes on SOPA have shifted in direct response to your actions, and we now have senators posting to thank reddit for being involved and rally its attention. This morning, Tuesday's crucial PIPA cloture vote in the Senate was postponed, and the House Judiciary Committee has delayed action on SOPA.
Despite this momentary success, the threat of internet suppressing legislation is far from over. We are still in the early days of the internet. There will be future bills and future hearings. The problems and conflicts of interest these bills brought to the foreground have not gone away. Facilitating fair business models without endangering free expression is one of the most important problems of our medium, and if we want to end up differently from past revolutions, we'll have our work cut out for us.
Looking back, the past few days have been defining ones for us and other internet communities. Thank you, individuals and organizations that first raised the red flag about these bills. Thank you, Senator Wyden, Representative Loefgren, Representative Issa, and all of the other elected officials and staffers who are helping fight these bills, and did so even when the odds were long. Thank you, reddit, for deciding on and championing our blackout, and for helping to make an impact greater than any of us could have had separately. Thank you to the over 13 million people that got involved on January 18th.
We've made our voices heard. reddit and the larger internet community now have a big opportunity. So, what's next? That is up to you.
